Sunday, April 18, 2010

Results, April 12-18

The major event in joshi puroresu this week was JWP's annual spring event known as "MANIA-X", held in Korakuen Hall on April 18th. Sendai's Ryo Mizunami, who had defended the JWP Jr/POP titles against Kazumi Shimouma at an Ice Ribbon show the day before, beat JWP rookie Senri Kuroki, who got a halfway decent looking purple and silver costume. Command Bolshoi & Tsukasa Fujimoto defeated Megumi Yabushita and Ayako Sato in a High Speed meets Submissions match. Keito's 15th anniversary match saw her eat a Niagara Driver from Big Momma Kyoko Inoue.
The losing JWP OCC league participants had a JWP vs outsiders elimination tag match. Sachie Abe quickly dispatched Passion Hottei, and then ate Yumi Ohka's big boot. Leon eliminated Ohka, but then both Leon and Kaori Yoneyama were eliminated by Emi Sakura's La Magistrals, to leave JWP at a two to one disadvantage. Tsubasa Kuragaki overcame this handicap, beating both Ran Yu-Yu and Emi to win the day for JWP. KAZUKI and Toshie Uematsu sucessfully defended the JWP/Daily Sports tag belts over HIROKA and Atsuko Emoto, with Toshie pinning HIROKA with the Solarina.

The big news was Kayoko Haruyama's 9th defense of the JWP Openweight title, almost two full years since winning the belt from the now retired Azumi Hyuga at this same show in 2008. The challenger was Passion Red's Nanae Takahashi, who had won the OCC league. Nanae ended up taking the title after 24 minutes with the Nanaracka*100. Nanae said that she now plans on capturing the NEO/NWA Pacific belts and the Sendai Girls tournament title to establish herself as the dominant force of joshi puroresu. Nanae added this title to the International Ice Ribbon tag belt she shares with Kazumi Shimouma and the Ice Ribbon Triangle belt that she won from Miyako Matsumoto & Riho on Saturday's Ice Ribbon show. I don't really see the point of booking Takahashi to win Ice Ribbon's secondary belt. Fortunately for not-quite teenager Riho, the current ICEx60 champion, there's little threat that Nanae will ever make the 60 kg weight limit.

Ice Ribbon's Saturday show at Itabashi Green Hall, in addition to the title matches already mentioned, saw the re-debut of Yumiko Inoue, a former idol girl who briefly worked for JD Star several years ago. She lost to Chii Tomiya, the tiniest non-preteen wrestler in joshi. Ice Ribbon is setting up their "Golden Ribbon" at Korakuen Hall early next month, featuring Riho vs Emi Sakura for the ICEx60 title, Mai Ichii vs Emi Fujino in an MMA fight, and a three-way for the tag titles with champs Nanae & Kazumi vs GENTARO & Keita Yano and the dream team of Miyako Matsumoto and Jun Kasai. I predict fake light tubes made of balloons or styrofoam.

Ito Dojo held a rare show. I'm sure they won't start a website or get TV or sell DVDs or anything else that might get people's attention. I'm obsessive enough and found results. The ever-elusive Tomoko Morii drew with Kazumi Shimouma. Hanako Kobayashi & Cherry beat Asami Kawasaki & Kana, with the Cherryton Bomb on Asami. Aki Kambayashi (aka Miss Mongol) beat Sakura Hirota when Hirota submitted due to "shame and embarassement". I can't say I blame her. Or maybe that's a botched translation! Ayako Sato got a win over ex-Ito Dojo fighter Mai Ichii. The main event was a blast from the past, with Kaoru Ito & Aja Kong taking on Yumiko Hotta (not Passion Hottei) and Takako Inoue (who still is a hottie). Takako ate a backfist from Aja.

NEO had a silly house show. The opener was a battle royale to qualify for the battle royale on the anniversary show (part two) at Korakuen on May 5. It was Toshie Uematsu (already in) versus six indy sleazes that fall below Small Giant Baba on the puroresu pecking order. Such luminaries of the puroresu world as Konaka=Pale One and Karate Mummy failed, but Yuiga got the rare win and her chubby masked presence will bless the main battle royale for a least a few seconds. Oh, the main event was Kyoko Inoue & Nanae Takahashi against Ryo Mizunami & Aya Yuki. Sounds like an extended squash match. Big Momma got the expected win via powerbomb over Little Genki(Aya).